


Too in Love to Let It Go

by vampiremiw



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Compliant, Chillin in Wakanda, Cryogenics, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Past Sharon Carter/Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Standard Captain America time travel bullshit making things complicated, rating might go up later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-07 12:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6805438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampiremiw/pseuds/vampiremiw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s Steve and Bucky. That’s all there’s ever been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Guide You Home

**Author's Note:**

> Hello lovelies! (: I have another fic for all of you! I saw Civil War this weekend and oh my goodness I just could not get this idea out of my head!  
> I'm trying something a little different this time uWu I hope you all enjoy it!! <3<3

There’s Steve and Bucky. That’s all there’s ever been. They’ve been apart before, sure, but they always seem to find their way back to each other.

These last few months alone have been the worst. Because Tony is gone and Natasha is gone, the team is gone, but he thought he got Bucky back. For real this time.

And then Bucky left him alone again.

He understands why.

He understands Bucky doesn’t remember. The grinning thumbs-up Bucky gave Steve when he kissed Sharon sure let him know that. If all Bucky could do was grin, when Steve kissed somebody else in front of them, he didn’t remember any of it. If Bucky remembered, he wouldn’t have left again.

So he’s spent the last few months fighting alone. Fighting the threats his friends who signed the Sokovia Accords aren’t allowed to fight. Not thinking about Bucky. Frozen, alone. Bucky who chose to go back under, rather than stay and fight alongside Steve. It’s so much easier if he doesn’t think about it.

But this new thing, it might change all that. A faction of Hydra reforming. At least, that’s what it looks like. Something Steve can’t face alone.

“We need Barnes,” T’Challa says. “I don’t see another way around this.”

They’re in T’Challa’s office, debating the best course of action in addressing this new threat. He’s suggested this already, and he’s drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair, waiting for Steve to give in. Just say yes so they can move forward. T’Challa doesn’t know the history and he wouldn’t care if he did. He’s just concerned about the present.

Steve wishes he could be so focused.

“Maybe there’s not,” he says. “I just don’t want to rush into anything.”

“We need to make a decision, Captain Rogers,” T’Challa says. 

There is no best course of action, there’s just the one course of action. Bucky’s the only one who knows about Hydra, who can tell them how to deal with this. There have been terrorist attacks. Assassinations. Things are going to shit quickly. People are dying.

The Avengers aren’t allowed to interfere yet because the attacks don’t look connected. But Steve and T’Challa have been watching. They’ve noticed the patterns and they see where this is headed. If they don't put a stop to it now, the Avengers won’t be able to, by the time they get the approval.

And, damn it, this is why Steve didn’t sign the accords. He needs to have the freedom to deal with problems like this before they get out of hand.

“You’re right,” Steve says. “You’re right; we need Bucky.”

He can’t help imagining Bucky as he looks right now, frozen in a glass case, kept like a figure in a museum. His face looks distant, when Steve can bear to look at him, obscured by the frost. Eyes closed in something deeper than sleep. So far away, free from Steve and his bullshit. It seems almost cruel to wake him up, no matter how much they need him.

If it were up to him, he doesn’t know if he could do it. But as soon as Steve agrees, T’Challa instructs his scientists to bring Barnes out of cryosleep and it’s out of his hands now.

Steve has to remind himself that this is for something much larger than the two of them, as he thinks of Bucky waking up, being with him again. This isn’t about them.

______________________________________________________________________________

They’ve got Bucky down in the medical ward at T’Challa’s compound. The thawing went well, but they want to monitor him a little longer. So that’s where Steve finds him, wrapped in blankets on a hospital bed, with that grumpy look he always used to have when Steve woke him up.

This isn’t about them.

“Steve?” Bucky says, his voice hoarse from disuse.

It’s been a long time since he’s heard Bucky say his name like that. It’s all he can do to focus on the mission, the business they need to take care of. Don’t think about the past. Because if Bucky doesn’t remember, bringing it up will just make it all that much worse.

Steve has been hanging back in the doorway, but he forces a grin on his face and he forces himself to enter the room. He stops about halfway in and hovers there, unsure what to do. 

“Morning, Buck,” Steve says. “How you feeling?”

“Well, that was one of the more pleasant times I’ve had,” he says. “Hydra was never too careful about the freezing.”

Bucky pauses. He frowns.

Steve knows exactly what he’s going to say next. He wishes they could have just let Bucky sleep.

“They told me why you woke me up,” he says. “We’re fighting Hydra?”

“Well, we think they’re Hydra,” Steve says. “That’s why we need you. To figure out what we’re dealing with here.”

“You brought me back to deal with the people I was hiding from,” Bucky says.

Steve cringes.

Still, they’re just talking business, what needs to get done. Even if Bucky isn’t happy with him, this is so much easier. There’s a lot of other topics he’d much rather avoid.

“We woke you up because we need information,” he says. “You know more about them than any of us.”

“More than the files Romanov leaked could tell you?” Bucky asks.

“It’s outdated information,” Steve says. “It can’t identify what this new group is. It can’t tell us where they might be operating from or who might be involved. We’ve gotten what we can from the files, but you worked for these people. You know what they’re like.”

Bucky’s frown deepens.

“And what if they have those… those code words?” he asks. “Don’t suppose you’ve figured out how to stop that yet?”

“No,” Steve says. “Not yet. But it won’t go like last time. We’ll be careful. We’ll make sure it doesn’t get to that point.”

Bucky’s got this look on his face, like he’s trying not to get his hopes up.

“Steve, you and I both know that’s not how this works,” he says.

They’re getting off topic, closing in on things he doesn’t want to talk about. He doesn’t know if he can do it again--listen to Bucky say how he can remember the name of Steve’s mother and he can remember when they were kids, but he can’t remember what they were to each other. He doesn’t know if he can do it again without messing this up even more.

Steve lets out a long sigh. He finally lets himself sit down on the bed next to Bucky.

“I know,” he says.

Now Bucky’s looking at him, with this deep stare, and it’s familiar in a way he wishes it wasn’t.

“So what are we gonna do about it?” Bucky says.

“I’ll be there to protect you this time,” Steve says. “We’ll be together. We’ll figure it out.”

“Like always, right?” Bucky says.

This isn’t about them, Steve tries to remind himself. This is about Hydra and freedom and the Sokovia Accords and the Avengers and protecting his friends and all those Captain America things he’s supposed to think.

Bucky’s eyes flicker up to meet Steve’s for a second, and then he drops his gaze. This is about nothing more than the two of them.

“I should tell you,” Bucky starts. “I… remember. A lot more this time.”

A jolt goes through Steve’s stomach.

And then Bucky says what Steve has been longing for and dreading to hear him say, since the first time he saw the Winter Soldier. Since the first time he knew Bucky was still alive, frozen in time with him.

“I remember us,” he says.

He wants nothing more than to grab Bucky and kiss him right now, but he pulls back. This is supposed to be work. This is supposed to be saving the world. This isn’t supposed to be about the two of them.

“What do you remember?” he asks.

He’s trying so hard not to get his own hopes up this time. But he can’t help it.

Bucky shifts, closer to Steve and then farther, ending up right back where he was.

“Not everything,” he says. “But I remember the first time I kissed you. And that day at Coney Island. The time we got drunk and sat out on the fire escape and watched the sun rise. I remember us.”

Hydra, Sokovia, Wakanda, The Avengers, even Captain America, all disappear from Steve’s head. And when he grabs Bucky by the shoulders and kisses him, they’re just those two kids from Brooklyn again.

Bucky melts into him, wrapping his arm around Steve’s waist, pressing their bodies together. Steve’s running his hands through Bucky’s hair, pulling him closer. That gross kind of making out where neither of them cares what it looks like. Skin on skin, tongue on tongue, breathless and desperate. The first time Steve has kissed his boyfriend in something close to eighty years.

Bucky bites at his lip. Steve wants to laugh because they’re kissing like teenagers. He sort of gasps instead.

He pulls back just enough to look at Bucky for a second, with his big, blue-grey eyes, that half smile. He tries to memorize every line of his face, to make up for every time he thought he’d never see it again.

“I missed you,” he whispers against his lips.

Steve can feel his smile as Bucky kisses him again, pulling him back in, wrapping his arm even tighter around him. They’ve found each other again, for real this time.

And then Bucky stops. He keeps his arm around Steve, but he pulls back, so he can look him full in the face. And Steve is really hoping Bucky’s going to say he loves him or something like that, but that’s not the look he’s got.

“You kissed Sharon,” Bucky says.


	2. An Old Flame Burns Forever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg sorry it took so long! I planned to have this up earlier, but life got busy. Here it is, tho UwU
> 
> I saw Civil War a second time and got ideas so there's more plot and stuff in this chapter. Also, Sam Wilson for the lovely readers who were asking about him.

The memories are hazy; they float through his head in a way he can almost see, until he tries to grasp at them and they flutter out of his reach. He sees bits and pieces though. He sees him and Steve and it’s so much clearer after waking up this time.

The memories from their lives before are fucked. All torn up and pieced back together, like he had to dig them out of a paper shredder and tape them all back together. The recent memories sure aren’t, though.

“You kissed her,” Bucky repeats. “In front of me. What the hell?”

He's still got his arm around Steve’s waist and it feels like he's sitting too close for this conversation, but he isn't ready to let go of Steve yet.

Steve looks away.

“Bucky, I…” he starts. “I didn't know if I was ever going to get you back or if we were going to make it out of that. It didn't… I couldn’t lose both of you.”

Too many ifs. At some point their lives became so many ifs and could-have-beens. Like they fragmented off in a hundred different directions and they might never piece themselves back together.

And it's not exactly like he's been around when Steve needed him. He was off having his brain fried and frozen and killing people and… shit, he wonders if it's even fair to hold Steve to this relationship. They never broke it off but it's kinda been a while since they were together.

There’s a knock at the half open door.

He snatches his arm away from Steve.

“Am I interrupting something?” Sam asks, looking between the two of them.

Ah, Sam Wilson, his favorite person.

Steve shifts farther away from Bucky. A second ago there wasn’t any space between them and now they’re practically sitting at opposite ends of the hospital bed.

“No, no, you’re fine,” Steve says. “What is it?”

“Call from Wanda,” Sam says. “She’s got a lead.”

Wanda. He should remember Wanda. Except he can’t. It’s all he can think about now--he’s only vaguely aware of following Steve and Sam out of the room and through the compound. He’s all caught up in his head like he gets these days.

These days. It’s been decades. He couldn’t try to guess how much of it he was awake for. Not much. But it’s been more than “days.”

No, wait, Wanda. He remembers her. The girl from the airport. She fought with them. She helped them escape.

He would have remembered her anyway, because when they get to T’Challa’s office she’s there on the video screen waiting for them, lips pressed in a thin line, worried. Her face is distinctly familiar, it was just the name he had trouble with. But now he doesn’t know if he should remember her from before. Can’t remember if they met before the airport.

He wants to think his head is getting clearer, but it would be too much to hope for. It was just chance that he remembered him and Steve. Something about the way the light was hitting his face and some sound in the background, as he was waking up--something about it made him think he was somewhere else, think Steve was gonna be there next to him. He thought they were back together, in the apartment in Brooklyn, as he was waking up. It was just luck.

Steve’s asking Wanda what she found out. Steve’s not looking at him.

And now Bucky’s wondering if Steve was ever going to remind him that they’d been together.

“This man was there,” Wanda is saying. “Hold on…”

She fiddles with the screen on her end and a grainy photo pops up. It’s a freeze frame of security footage showing a younger man turning to face the camera, fire in the background and this weird smirk on this face.

“He was there last week at the CDC building too,” she says. 

“Do we have anything on him?” Sam asks.

Wanda is shaking her head, as she tries to enlarge the photo so they can see his face better.

“I’ve been looking through Hydra’s files,” T’Challa says, “but the information we need is difficult to find.”

Names are hard to remember. Names are words and words are the hardest bits to pull from the foggy, torn up memories. But faces are easy and he recognizes this one. The name follows, though, once he knows where he saw the face.

“McCoy,” Bucky says.

“You know him?” Steve asks.

“I think so,” Bucky says.

He wishes he could trust himself, just say yes. But it’s all so fucked up in his head, he can’t even do that.

“And this is why we needed Barnes,” T’Challa says, more to Steve than the others.

“He was there, one of the last times they woke me up,” Bucky continues. “For a hit in Afghanistan, I think? I didn’t know who he was. Hadn’t seen him around before. But he was with the higher-ups. Gave me instructions.”

“So what is he up to now?” Sam asks.

He looks to Bucky, as if Bucky is going to have any idea what the hell is going on.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“Well, he seems to be starting fires in chemical factories,” Wanda says.

“Sounds dangerous,” Steve says.

“Not as dangerous as it could have been,” Wanda says with half a smile.

Bucky loses them in the banter, and the talk about strategy and everything he’s missed while he was under. Names of places that should be important, but he can’t quite recall why. All these things he just doesn’t know and he can’t quite keep track of.

He sits with them at the table in T’Challa’s office while they look through files and look over maps. He wishes he could tell them more, that he could be of some use. But he’s just sitting there in silence while they talk it over, discuss where this Hydra group is going to strike next. There’s nothing he can contribute to their plans for saving the world.

It’s easier to think about McCoy, whoever the hell he is. And he focuses on that, instead of on Steve.

Steve is sitting next to him, but there’s an empty chair between them.

Damn it to hell.

He doesn’t know what to do.

Hydra’s out there somewhere, plotting to take over the world, or whatever evil shit they do. They’re out there with the words to hijack his mind, to make him attack his friends. He should be scared of them, but all he can see is that empty chair between him and Steve.

The afternoon goes by like that. He contributes when he can, but it’s not much. At some point there’s dinner, and at some point Sam says he’s heading to bed. So far, being awake this time isn’t all that different from being frozen.

“Perhaps it’s best to call it a night, Captain Rogers,” T’Challa says. “I don’t believe there’s more we can do until Maximoff reports again.”

Steve mumbles some agreement. He looks tired. Steve always looks tired these days.

Bucky stands with the others as they stand and he follows Steve from the room when he leaves. He sorta wonders if he knows how to do anything else anymore.

He glances over his shoulder to make sure Sam isn’t still around to listen.

“Huge help I was today,” he says to Steve.

“You identified the leader of the group,” Steve says. “That is a huge help.”

“I’m sure it’s in Hydra’s files somewhere,” he says.

“Maybe,” Steve says, “but we could have spent the whole day looking for his name and still not found it.”

“Maybe I get you to them faster,” he says. “And then maybe they turn me against you and I fuck it all up.”

He’s a weapon now--not even a soldier. They shredded his mind and that’s all that’s left of him. He’s a machine they can program to do whatever they want.

“It’s a risk we have to take,” Steve says. “Whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it fast.”

He looks at Bucky then, full on for the first time since that morning. Bucky wants to look away, but he forces himself to keep the eye contact.

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad to have you back,” Steve says.

He wishes he could say he’s glad to be back. He wants to, but Steve would see right through the lie, seeing as he wanted to freeze himself this time. Still, he manages a smile as he looks away.

And that smile is spreading across Steve’s face too. He wants to--he doesn’t know quite what he wants. He wants to be closer to Steve. Just take his hand or something. Be like they used to. Hold him. Because, fuck, it’s been so long. He’s almost starting to reach out toward him.

Steve’s too far away. There’s that distance between them, like the empty chair at the table.

“Glad I can help,” he says.

They stop at a door, that must be Steve’s bedroom, and Steve turns to face him. For half a second, Bucky thinks Steve is reaching out toward him, but then he drops his hand.

He wonders what the hell he’s supposed to say to his boyfriend who he kissed earlier, but hasn’t really talked with since the last century. He figures he’ll just leave it be, like he does with everything. If he doesn’t touch it, he can’t fuck it up.

“We do need you on this one,” Steve says. “We’re not gonna get through it without you.”

Bucky bites back the remark, that they might not get through it with him. He knows what Steve thinks and he doesn’t want to get into that right now. There are conversations they need to have, but he doesn’t want to have that one right now.

He just shakes his head. “I guess,” he says.

It feels like the end of it. He wants to just leave it there, before he makes this any worse, and this is as good a place as any.

“Night, Steve,” he says.

Before he can even start to move, Steve grabs his arm.

“Bucky,” Steve says. “You don’t have to leave, you know. You can stay in my room.”

He looks down at Steve’s hand on his arm. Steve loosens his grip, but doesn’t pull back. He just stays there, holding onto Bucky like the world is crumbling to pieces around them and he’s the only solid thing left. No, he thinks, that’s not quite right. The world has already crumbled and he’s all that’s left over.

“You… want me to?” Bucky asks. He lets himself draw in closer; Steve’s all he has left too.

“Of course I want you to,” he says.

And, fuck, that look in his eyes, that might be what Bucky fell in love with in the first place. It breaks off into a grin, though. One of those grins so Steve can try to defuse the situation before it gets out of hand.

“If you’re not too mad at me over Sharon,” he says.

“No, I… understand,” he says. “I wasn’t really around.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve says. “I shouldn’t have--.”

“No, I get it,” he says. 

He gets it. He doesn’t care, he tells himself. Because he has Steve now. Steve’s hand on his shoulder and he’s drinking in the contact. When they kissed this morning it was rushed and frantic and blurry; he remembers it like things from before, not quite there, like he’s watching it from underwater. But now he’s aware of it, he can feel it. 

He follows Steve through the door. He’s got this big room, with high ceilings and a wall of windows, looking out over the dark jungle and the waterfalls. The place looks like a hotel--clean and nice and like nobody actually lives there.

But he and Steve are there.

He faces Steve. They’re close together, Steve’s hand just resting there on his shoulder. Behind Steve, this fine mist is coming down over the jungle, shifting and changing. The only light in the room glows from a computer on the desk, casting soft, blue shadows across them.

Everything seems quiet now.

The world has frozen around them and they’re all that’s left.

Bucky doesn’t want to hang back anymore. He steps in and puts his hand on the back of Steve’s neck. He pulls him in and presses their lips together. Gently. Shit, he just needs something gentle.

It’s soft and quiet. The only sounds are their own breath and the faint hum of the computer in the background, the sound of them moving against each other. He runs his fingers through Steve’s hair, pulling him in closer, wanting to feel every place of contact between them he can.

He can hardly believe he’s got something this good. Hell, he can hardly believe Steve still wants to kiss him after everything he’s done.

He breaks the kiss, but Steve presses back in to kiss him again.

“Steve, wait,” he says.

“What?” Steve asks, as he presses his lips against the side of Bucky’s face, down his neck.

“Steve, do you still want to do this with me?”

Steve stops.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“This,” Bucky says. “Us.”

“Of course I do,” Steve says.

It’s too quick. Maybe Bucky should just be happy for what he has. Maybe he should stop trying to question every good thing that happens to him, but he can’t just leave it alone. Not this time. He needs to know.

“I tried to kill you,” he says.

Steve grimaces.

“That wasn’t you, Buck,” he says.

“But it still was,” Bucky says. “Sort of. It doesn’t make this weird?”

It was him, even if Steve doesn’t want to see that. That’s a whole other conversation, though.

“No,” Steve says. “It’s still you here. You’re still the same person I loved before. Why would it be any different now?”

And, aw shit, there it is. “Love.” It’s going too fast. Bucky wants to run. He wants to go back under, to that place where he doesn’t have to think or even dream. It’s not like they’re kids, though, rushing into things they don’t understand. They’ve been together for years. Years they remember, more or less. They were together for years before there were serums and wars to fight.

“Fuck, I love you, Steve,” Bucky breathes. He sighs against Steve’s lips as he pulls him back in, not quite kissing him yet.

“I still want to be with you,” Steve whispers, “as long as you still want to be with me.”

Bucky can feel the words as Steve says them. They’re inches apart, the air crackling with that electric feeling just before a kiss.

“Of course I do,” Bucky says.

There’s no way of knowing who closes the space between them. All Bucky knows is there’s no space left there anymore. Steve kisses him, first on the mouth and then across the side of his face. When he comes back to his mouth again, there’s teeth this time, which he wasn’t expecting from Steve. They’re gasping against each other, he’s digging his fingers into Steve’s shoulder and it’s not quite as gentle now. He doesn’t care if they’re moving too fast--he just wants Steve.

Steve guides them toward the bed. Bucky sits down on the mattress, pulling Steve with him, and leans them back together. They’re sinking together, melting into each other. There’s nothing but Steve above him, Steve’s skin against his, the smell of him. Nothing else matters.

He missed this. Even when he couldn’t remember this, he missed it. He missed Steve. The way their breathing falls into sync and the way their bodies move against each other.

Later, when the world is still quiet and he’s falling asleep with Steve’s arms around him, it’s the closest to happy he can remember being in a long time. It sure is the best way he’s gone to sleep in a long time, ‘cause he’s not alone now.


End file.
